Features (Gardening)

Renewal is the irresistible urge of spring, reaching from the ground up into our homes and hearts.
It’s time to make some changes. But unless you bring home some new ideas, you’ll be recycling the same old stuff.
In the nick of time, here’s Bay Weekly’s 2015 Home and Garden Guide, bringing you 28 partners to inspire and assist your renewal.

All the Tools Your Inner Artist Needs

Are you a DIY sort of person? Do you need supplies and inspiration for your creative projects?
Art Things, Inc. in West Annapolis is a place you should explore.
...

This time of year gardeners feel the itch for warm weather. We’re wistful about anything green and have gardening books spread out in inconvenient places in eagerness for another season.
Scratch the itch by honing your design skills with plantsman, author and Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens executive director William Cullina. He comes to Annapolis March 7 to talk about the botany of design.
...

Amish Structures for Work and Play

Anne Arundel County blooms with the help of Unity Gardens twice a year. This non-profit organization raises money to helps community groups with twice-yearly grants to green their spaces. The new cycle to apply for grants up to $1,000 runs from July 1 through August 31. So act now or wait until January.
...

On a farm in St. Margaret’s, land that had been in sod has sprouted raised beds for a new community garden. The one-half-acre space gets full sun, has good fencing to keep out the deer and plenty of water. Thanks to the dedication of the farmers and members of Grow Annapolis, those with shade-bound yards now have a place to go — not just to raise food, but also to make new friends....

For more abundant flowers on your rhododendrons and mountain laurels next year, deadhead this year’s flowers as soon as they wilt. By preventing the flowers from setting seeds, you’ll stimulate the branches to flush new growth from waiting latent buds. This is especially true if the bushes are growing in full sun.
...

As Christmas approaches, it’s time to bring fresh greens, with their piney aromas, into your home. Here in Bay Country, we have an abundance of evergreens to choose from. Many will last through the season, even without water. Others dry up too quickly to come inside.
...

Fellow gardeners often ask me which gardening tools are my favorites. In case you’re shopping for one of those gardeners, here’s my list. I don’t stint on price because I want quality tools that last.
...

On December 3, the Parish Hall At Christ’s Church in Port Republic bustles with four dozen Calvert Garden Clubbers preparing to decorate the county courthouse with evergreens harvested a day earlier at four local farms.
“We call it the Greening,” says cochair Mary Berkley.
Wearing monogrammed aprons, they work likes elves trimming magnolia, grapevine and boxwood for wreaths, fragrant sprays and evergreen ropes.
...